What's Covered by the Dust of Time Still Exists
by LikeNobodysWatching
Summary: Beneath the dust of time, old, unexpected, wounds still exist for both Santana and Brittany.


**OK, so I've only just gotten into Brittana. I think my grasp on the characters is somewhat moderate. First brittana fic, so i hope you enjoy :) And Merry Christmas.**

What's Covered by the Dust of Time Still Exists

My fists balled at my sides, unclenching, before balling again. "Ugh! I hate you." I grunted, believing it with so much of my being that my eyes momentarily squeezed shut, pleating at the corners like a quilt.

She remained calmly poised on the small step ladder, her back to me as she stretched up and pinned the shiny red Christmas decoration to the corner of the blackboard with her thumb, before pressing the staple gun to it. I watched her head nod back at the loud recoil of the tool, and then she finally turned around, dropping the gun to her side.

"San, sweetheart, please. I planned to come straight home so that we could talk about it, but they asked me to stay and help with a few decora –"

"No, no, no," I wagged my index finger, frowning and folding my arms. "You don't get to call me San, or sweetheart, or, or _anything_," I bat my hand through the air, "Else that suggests we're anything more than two women stood on opposite sides of a room right now. You're gonna let a few Christmas decorations keep you from coming home..." My words skidded to a halt as I noticed a sparkly red ribbon hanging festively from the door handle. I reached a few fingers through one of its loops and aggressively tugged it off, tossing it to the classroom floor.

"Ohh-k." Brittany arched over slightly, reaching down to gently place the staple gun onto the roof of the cabinet just to her right. "Woman stood on the opposite side of the room," She addressed me in a soft bow of her head, "Can you _try _to calm –"

I immediately chopped the air sideways with the knife of my hand, trampling on her unfinished words. "No! In fact, you don't get to call me anything at all anymore Britt. I'm going home to pack my shit. Screw this."

"Woman stood on the opposite side of the room!" She whined after me...

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><p>I listened to the key clicking in the lock as I dropped down into the sofa and curled my legs beneath myself, watching as the front door slowly grew ajar. Her blonde hair was the first thing I saw before any other part of her arrived past the threshold, and I despised that I felt my fingers tingling to perform the usual scenario; combing their way through her golden locks whilst I greeted her with a kiss. But I wasn't happy, so neither would my fingers be experiencing any sort of bliss either.<p>

"Finally decided to come home then." I barbed under my breath, staring through the television.

"I'm happy you decided not to pack your stuff, Santana." She muttered, smiling at me over her solemn whilst she brought the strap of her bag down her shoulder and dropped it into the arm chair with palpable glum.

"Yeah?" I raised my brows and lent my head on its side sardonically. "Well, you haven't been in the bedroom and checked the drawers and closet yet."

Brittany's cheeks puffed momentarily, later expelling a long, weary, sigh. "You really have to get over your jealousy, Santana. Me touching myself when you're not there shouldn't be this big of an issue. I've always done it. This is just the first time you've walked in on me. I've even done it whilst you've been asleep next to me, San." She shrugged, looking me in the eye with a frankness I was unaccustomed to when it came to her.

"Alright." I said, getting even more comfortable on the sofa.

If she wanted to lay it all out on the table...

"When you were screwing two-wheels back in high school, what did you tell me?"

Brittany's cat-like blue eyes glistened in the TV-lit lounge as they veered off up to the right. Eventually she shrugged, frowning. "I told you a lot of things when I was with Artie back in high school, Santana. You're gonna have to be more specific." She explained softly.

"You said you always thought about us hooking up when you rubbed yourself off, never two-wheels. How do I know you're not thinking about other folks when you're alone and getting your bean-flick on?"

"Soo," Brittany drawled. "You don't trust me?"

Something arrested my tongue at that question, and I found myself running a stressed hand through my hair, silk black strands waterfalling between my fingers. I held my hand there for a second and sighed. "Britt –"

"After eight years together, you're just now realizing you don't trust me?"

Shit! How did the script flip here?

"It's not that I don't trust you. Jesus!"

I watched the woman I've been obsessed with since high school fold her arms across her chest and an eyebrow of hers arched skeptically. "You _don't _trust me. You can't if this is such a big issue for you."

"I just know how people work, Britt. When you have a sexual encounter with somebody, you're always gonna remember it. Hell, sometimes you might even think about it, regardless of whether you're still in love with that person or not. It's always gonna be there. I just," I shook my head to myself, frowning. "I hate knowing that there are other people walking around – or rolling around on two wheels – who've had their grubby little hands on your body. And it sucks to know that any thought could push a person into orgasm when they're on the precipice of one, even the thought of a geeky dude in a wheelchair. When you're horny, anything goes."

Brittany scooted her bag over and sat down in the arm chair. "This isn't about anybody else. This," She reaches over and palms my hand. "Is about Artie, isn't it?"

My eyes fell closed at the contact, at the level of warmth that only Brittany could radiate. I sucked in a deep breath, and then exhaled, opening my eyes.

"I'm going to bed." I announced, making to stand when Brittany kept a dour hold of my hand and shook her head.

"Baby, no. You're not going to bed. You were mad at me for not coming home when I was supposed to, because you wanted to talk this through. So let's," She shrugged, hopefully. "Talk this through."

"...I'm tired, Britt." I told her, my resolve a little dented.

She gave my hand the gentlest of squeezes. "Me too, but I don't want to go to sleep upset, or knowing that you're upset. Lord Tubbington The Second will sense the negative energy, and he wont bother tickling our feet in the morning to wake us up on time for work."

After surveying the seriousness in Brittany's gaze, I slowly sat back down, staring into the cold cup of mint tea I'd made myself earlier. The teabag was still floating around the mug, gently bumping the sides.

Eventually I stopped distracting myself from the reality awaiting me outside of thoughts about mint tea, and mumbled. "He almost took you from me, Britt."

"Sweetheart." She drawled, as if disappointed, disbelieving, and touched all at once. "We haven't seen him since high school. Why are you so putrid about him?"

Against my ego's deafening instructions, I let my face crack a soft smile. "Perturbed, Britt. Not putrid – and I don't know." My face straightened back out "Artie's always gotten to me."

"It's because his legs don't work, isn't it?"

I bowed my head, hair falling around my face as I trailed the tip of a finger around the sofa's fabric. "Not like that." I sighed, relenting to a one-shoulder shrug, "But yeah. I guess, I'm kinda still not over the fact that you chose to be with a guy who was in a wheelchair over me. And I know it's a shitty thing to say, but when I told you I loved you, and you blew me off for a wheelchair-bound geek, my self-esteem took a massive blow."

"What are you talking about, baby? I chose you. I live with you. My life's with you."

"Yeah but..." I paused to blink away the tears stinging at my eyes, sniffling loudly before mumbling, "I was the consolation prize; if he hadn't called you stupid, the two of you may still be together today. I saw the two of you together, Britt. The way you looked at him..."

"I did love Artie. But I loved you more."

"It's hard for me to see it that way when I had to wait until your relationship with him burnt out before you'd be with me. I was second best to..._him_."

Brittany frowned, unmistakable irritation growing over her features like a shadow. "Why are you saying 'him' like that, Santana? Because he's in a wheelchair?"

"Well...kind of, Brittany. I was gorgeous, the most popular girl in school, the sex was phenomenal, and I loved you so much I could barely breath when I looked at you. Then there's Stubbles McCripple. He couldn't take you out dancing, or make love to you like I could, or be the big, beefy boyfriend you used to talk about wanting when we first met. Yet you still felt like he had more to offer you than I did. It just, it stings, Britt."

"He offered me conversation, Santana, when you wouldn't."

I scoffed, slipping my hand out from her waned grasp. "We had conversations. All we did was talk when we weren't, you know...fucking each other's brains...out."

"But we never talked about the stuff that mattered, which was what was happening between us. I was so confused." She momentarily grabbed her head, her frown deepening, as she appeared to be reliving that period of our life.

I placed my hand over hers to stop her from tearing the hair from her head. "Ok. Ok. I get it. It was my fault. Just, stop exasperating yourself."

"To me, he wasn't a geek in a wheelchair. He was just." She shrugged. "Artie. He had a sense of humor, he was smart and he was caring and generous. Those were the things that mattered to me. Just because his legs didn't work, it didn't make him less of a candidate for my affection. His mind worked, and that's what I loved about him. You're stunning and all of your limbs work, and that helps, but that's not my meat and potatoes, San. Your mind is."

"Really?" I whimpered.

"Totally." She finally smiled again.

"But...I'm a complete bitch sometimes. Like the other day when that homeless guy begged us for change and I told him to change his clothes 'cause he was stanking up the place."

'Ugh!" Brittany waved her hand in front of her nose, as if she could still smell him. "He did smell. But I still had to drop ten dollars in his hat."

I chuckled quietly and sniffed the fog caused by the brief opening of my tear ducts out of my nose. "Promise you don't think about him when you're touching yourself?"

Her eyebrows shot off into her hairline. "Who, the homeless guy? _San_," She whined. "That's gross."

"No. I mean Artie."

Brittany suddenly stood up and made towards the bedroom, tossing: "Are you kidding? I always think about Lord Tubbington The Second," Over her shoulder with a wink.

"Not helping!" I raised my voice so that her retreating form could still hear me. "Because if that's true, we're getting rid of him. The only pussy you better be thinking of is mine."

When Brittany appeared within eyeshot again, she was standing in the doorway of our bedroom, clad in nothing but her purple lace bra and panties. "Why don't you come here," She slowly beckoned with a grin, "So that Britt-Britt can show you the kinds of things she thinks about when she touches herself?"

I blew out a regretful breath. "I would _love_ to, but I'm exhausted from being angry the entire day. I don't know how I managed to stay awake back in high school."

"Baby?" Brittany suddenly said, something different about her tone; softer, more child-like.

"Yeah?"

She looked down, began to peel at the cracking paint coating the frame of the doorway. "It wasn't about you being second best. We were already sleeping together behind his back, and I sort of felt like I owed him at least seeing the relationship through. I felt guilty, even though you told me it isn't cheating if the plumbing is different."

My head hung all on its own, before I mustered the courage to finally look back up at Brittany. "I'm sorry I told you that. It was manipulative and selfish. I'm really sorry."

She stopped peeling the doorway paint, and shook her head dismissively, smiling faintly as she peered at me. "It's ok. I knew it was wrong all along, and I still did it. But, I only did it because I couldn't _not_ do it. You were and always will be my first choice. I love you, Santana." She spoke that last part with a one-shoulder shrug, as if helpless to the fact.

"I love you too, Britt. I'm sorry about being a cunt the last few days too. I'll get my shit together, so that you don't have to deal with a jealous asshole every day for the rest of your life. I'm beginning to get on my own nerves, to be honest."

She scrunched up her nose in the way that I love, and waved my comment away. "Don't call yourself names. You're a passionate person San. Sensitive. You feel things intently."

I nodded with a grateful smile, not bothering to correct her so as not to ruin the moment.

"Emotions are a tough one sometimes, especially when you can't get them to behave. I get jealous too sometimes, like…" She dragged out the word, gazing up in thought, before snapping out of it, "When Mr. Blake blatantly hit on you in front of me."

"Ugh!" I shuddered. "Don't remind me. He looked so freaky. Why do all Science teachers look weird?"

"I don't know. I guess it'll always be one of life's unsolved mysteries…"

"_And_ I'm sorry for saying that I hated you. I don't hate you, and if I did it would be because I loved you so damn much. But, to clarify, I don't hate you, like at all. I love you all around the world and back, and then around however many universes there are out there. I promise to make a concerted effort not to let all that emotion drive me crazy. Instead it will empower me, because I have you." I smiled at her for at least ten seconds without saying anything, noting everything that was perfection about her. It was at that moment that it truly washed over me. "I have you Brittany Pierce."

Brittany chuckled at my ramble. "And I have you Santana Lopez. Don't even bother getting me anything for Christmas, because I have _everything_ I want in you – oh, except for that light saber. I have to have that."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes dear."

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><p><em>Fin<em>.

**Tell me what you think? Thanks for reading.**


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